How I Got Started in Golf Architecture - Part One

A question I am often asked is just how I got started in golf design. I will try to trace it as best as I can, but it’s not really such a linear progression. I first found out about Landscape Architecture as a profession when I was a junior in high school back in Connecticut. I spoke with a Landscape Architect and she told me about the various things that Landscape Architects do. She mentioned that most Landscape Architects eventually specialize in one aspect of the field. She mentioned Golf Course Design as one of several niches within recreation specialization. And while I thought that this was interesting, I was equally intrigued by all facets of Landscape Architecture, including urban planning, residential design, park design, garden design, historical preservation, ecological restoration, etc. She then described the process of obtaining a degree in Landscape Architecture from an accredited university and then obtaining a license in Landscape Architecture in order to practice in the majority of states with licensing laws. I decided this was a great field and ended up getting an Associates Degree from the State University of New York at Cobleskill. There I took courses in Turfgrass Management and Landscape Development. Bob Emmons, who has since retired, was the turf guy. (Little did I know at the time my good friend and fellow DJ, Frank Rossi, would eventually end up being the “turf guy” at Cornell!) Anyhow, we ended up building two greens and learned how to operate golf course maintenance equipment.


Following graduation from Cobleskill, I worked on the maintenance crew at the Shennecossett Golf Course in Groton, Connecticut. (This was back when it was still a Donald Ross course, before they ruined it – but that story is coming in another blog!) Anyway, I wondered who this Donald Ross guy was that designed it. At the time, I was involved in all of the operations of maintenance, including cutting greens, raking all 100 bunkers, cutting cups, etc. I also did some construction of tees, drainage, and helped with minor irrigation repair. I loved it. So much so, I took a year and a half off before going to Syracuse to get my degree in Landscape Architecture. Once I got to Syracuse, I became fascinated with all aspects of Landscape Architecture. I was interested in Golf Course Architecture, but was by no means “focused” on it. I did look into the field of Golf Course Design – but to be perfectly honest, I found it to be awfully shallow compared with other aspects of Landscape Architecture. The only interesting book I found was an old one – “The Links” by Robert Hunter. (Still one of my favorites) This was during the mid-80’s. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed no contemporary golf course architect had anything worthwhile to say. Yet contrasting this were the other aspects of Landscape Architecture. There was plenty to say. From Jens Jensen, to Thomas Church, Lawrence Halprin, Ian McHarg, John Simonds, Dan Kiley, and others. There was also this “kid” – an undergraduate from Yale that I was reading about - who had recently won a design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Her name was Maya Lin, and she had just blown away a field of national and international Architects and Landscape Architects by winning the competition. Her “original” thought process had led to an “original” design that is as moving and awesome and popular a piece of memorial architecture as exists anywhere in the world. I found that inspirational. Here, there were all of these ideas and original thoughts in many aspects of Landscape Architecture, and then there was Golf Design – with nothing to say, dead, completely void of any new design concepts. And worse yet, golf course design was being practiced by an old boy network – that looked like a “fraternity of designers and professional golfers”, who not only didn’t have any new ideas, but hadn’t even bothered to study the old ones! So I pursued what seemed far more interesting to me at the time, and took a job in a Landscape Architecture firm in Syracuse.